


To last the night

by i_claudia



Series: summer pornathon 2013 [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Monks, Religious Guilt, Summer Pornathon 2013, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:20:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is a humble, pious man, claiming no lot in life larger than this quiet corner of the abbey he has dedicated himself to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To last the night

**Author's Note:**

> Summer Pornathon 2013. Challenge Six: Light & Dark.
> 
> The original version, _far_ over the word limit on account of how I grew a lot of feelings about this 'verse.

Gaius is allowed a candle in his cell in deference to his age and his position; the combination means he does not sleep much, and though after compline he retires in accordance with the Lord's teachings, he often rises again long before matins. He leafs slowly through the vellum pages copied that day by the younger monks in his charge, laying aside the ones which will need to be scraped and redone. He is unable to keep himself admiring from some of the finer work—one of the newest initiates, in particular, has a fine eye and a steady hand. Uther would have welcomed such a man to his abbey; his ambitions were too large for such a quiet place.

The candle gutters, and Gaius wraps his blanket further around himself, letting the scratch of the wool focus him, centering his thoughts. It does no good to dwell on Uther, and he knows here, in the quiet, enveloping dark, he is at his weakest. Word has come from the coast that the Norsemen have started their raids—early, this year; it has been too warm a spring to keep them longer at bay—and though St. Anselm's is far from the sea, though he has given his fate entirely into God's hands, Gaius still feels his heart jump in fear. 

(They had left their homes burning behind them. Uther had gone because he was not a man to waste his time with mourning; Gaius because he had followed Uther for so long he now did so without a thought. He had followed Uther into the woods that morning, thus escaping death or capture, and with his home in ashes there was no longer anyone on God's green earth to keep him tied to anything but Uther.)

He leans over and extinguishes the candle; it feels more fitting, somehow, to wrestle with the devil on his shoulder in the dark—with the candle gone, there is no light to be found, no fire closer than the warming room, clear across the abbey; the clouds hang low in a thick curtain drawn across the new moon. 

Gaius knows, now, that it was not love which led him into the woods or to St. Anselm's. It was God's will that he be spared, God's plan which set him down here, to pray and to work in quiet contemplation. Age has given him the distance to see the world more clearly, but then...ah, then had been a different time; a lost time, a time spent in long and terrible delirium. He had felt his spirit move within his breast, and he had thought it love—terrifying, exhilarating love—and it had been the purest thing he ever shared with another man.

He remembers it still, even now, even after all these years of fasts and stone so cold it drives nails through his very knees as if in the act of agonized confession he shares some small part of Christ's own suffering. No measure of piety can free him from the memories which weigh, heavy, on each shoulder.

~

It had been summer, all endless days and hidden smiles, and Gaius had been sitting with his head bent to work for long enough that the very bones ached.

“Come, Gaius,” Uther said, his hand warm and sudden at the nape of Gaius's neck. “There's an hour still before None, follow me.”

Gaius gave the vellum he was scraping a regretful look. “Brother Michael instructed—”

“Brother Michael is a fussy old inkpot. We have permission.” Uther held up a sealed envelope. “The abbot wants this delivered at once, and I asked to take a companion with me to the village.”

They did not run—even before Uther had taken vows he had been too aware of his pride to be seen running—but they knocked shoulders on the way, linked arm in arm until Gaius stumbled and they came, laughing, to a hidden rest behind a copse of trees. Uther put his arms around Gaius, and they leant their heads in, resting against each other, their noses nearly touching. 

They were chaste in all but the secret spaces of their hearts. They had traded no more than a few curious kisses before they gave their lives and love to God. It was enough to be near each other, Uther holding Gaius in his strong arms as they rested, their faces nearly touching, and the mixing of their breath was more intimate than any carnal kiss. It was enough to indulge in this one thing, these warm embraces in the summer, with the sunshine heating the wild herbs around them until everything smelt of lavender. 

“You will be abbot,” Gaius had murmured—for he would, when the old abbot died, and all the brothers knew it, though the formalities would have to be observed—and Uther had smiled, pulling him closer, until their bodies touched and the rough wool of their habits rasped together. “Are you pleased? There is no finer man to lead us.”

“How could I not be pleased?” Uther asked softly, cupping Gaius's face in his hands. “Where else should I be so happy? I shall be abbot, and you shall be my strong right hand, and we shall live in peace.”

~

Gaius wonders, now, if he should have known. If he might have felt it that day, the last they had; if he could have changed any of it had he detected whatever shadow lay between them then. It is a fruitless path for thought, and he curls around himself in the darkness held under the blanket of his cot, drawing his hands into fists; temptation grows in the dark, pricking its teeth into his spine, daring him to betray his vows and the purity of their love. He shuts his eyes, though it makes no difference to the night.

There had been a woman. It would not have mattered—Uther would not have been the first brother to stray from his path—but in due course she had come to him in fright, with a child growing in her belly, and the pride with which Uther had struggled so long was equaled only by his terrible sense of duty. He had slipped out in the night between matins and lauds, not stopping even to say farewell to Gaius. 

The world has been colder, since that day; each new summer feels dim to Gaius now. Years later, they had heard that the woman had died, that Uther was left to raise his small son alone, but Gaius took no pleasure from that news. There is no longer any anger in him—he has been left with ashes. He has spent too many nights kneeling on the cold stone of the chapel, prostrate before the altar, desperate for a way to ease the grief that squeezes tight around his heart. He learned early how impossible it was for him to blame Uther, and he cannot put the fault on the sweet girl Uther loved, for she had only fallen before the same charms he himself did.

He cannot help but dwell on what, if he had woken to find Uther creeping from the abbey, it might have taken to make him stay. Gaius would have done anything, anything at all to keep from losing him, and he imagines it in the dark, his eyes still shut and his teeth sunk deep into his lip. He would have opened himself entirely to Uther; he would have thrown his vows into the mud and given himself over to the fires and the pleasures of the flesh, if Uther had ever asked it of him. 

His cock is hard between his legs, and Gaius is weak, has always been so. The breath stutters in his chest as he takes himself in hand, and imagines Uther. Uther would have been beautiful to behold in pleasure, a lover who brought the world crashing down around their bed; he would have demanded ownership in full, and Gaius would have let him take it—would have begged for it, begged for Uther to fill him until his cup cracked from running over. 

The night is empty around him; the only sounds are the catch in his ragged breath and the muffled noises of his hand as he strains closer, closer to the pale imitation which is all the pleasure he may take—the only sin that's left to him.


End file.
